The Role of Philanthropy in Local Government Finance

Nonprofit organizations thrive on the altruism of citizens, and actively court donors for major gifts. Yet individual gifts to government agencies are often unexpected, sporadic, and initiated by the donor. This article introduces the phenomenon of private giving to local governments and tests hypotheses regarding the expected forms of giving to public agencies. Results indicate that philanthropy is and will likely remain a minor and highly variable source of revenue, making it an ill‐suited replacement for broad‐based tax revenue. However, deliberate government efforts to provide a suitable environment for private donations appear to succeed in attracting more gifts per capita.     

经济开放对地方财政收入规模及结构的影响实证分析

使用中国1999—2007年度省级面板数据,实证分析了经济开放对地方财政收入规模和内部相对结构变化的作用。研究表明:贸易开放度的提高显著增加了地方个人所得税、行为税、财产税和非税收入,整体上也引起地方财政总收入的增加;并使地方财政收入中个人所得税、财产税和非税收入比重上升,城建税收入比重下降。投资开放的提升显著增加了地方营业税、个人所得税、行为税、非税及预算外收入,同时减少了地方增值税和企业所得税收入,总体上对地方财政收入有负效应;并提高了地方财政收入中营业税、个人所得税、行为税、财产税、非税收入及预算外收入的比重。由于外资和外贸对经济及税基的作用差异、现行分税制、地方各项财政收入自身特征、地方政府基于多元目标为促进外资投资呈现出的策略行为等,使经济开放对地方各项财政收入规模及其相对结构的影响具有复杂和非一致性。     

Contextual Effects on Retrospective Economic Evaluations The Impact of the State and Local Economy

The theoretical premise of this study is that individual retrospective evaluations of the national economy, which have a clear impact on voting behavior in national elections, are influenced not only by the national economy but also by the state and local economic context. This hypothesis is tested by analyzing the effect that the unemployment rate in the individual's state and community has on the individual's retrospective evaluation of the national unemployment situation in 1992, using data from the 1992 American National Election Study survey, supplemented with data on the unemployment rate during the third quarter of 1992 for the respondent's community and state. The findings show that the state unemployment rate has a clear effect on retrospective evaluations of national economic conditions. This effect occurs apart from any effect on fear of unemployment, which is unaffected by the state unemployment rate. The community unemployment rate has little or no effect on retrospective economic evaluations, except for a small impact on personal unemployment experience. The contextual effect that we observe therefore is primarily sociotropic, not personal pocketbook, in nature. We suggest that the contextual patterning of information, perhaps especially through media reporting of economic conditions, is responsible for producing this effect.     

The Impact of Political Factors on Local Government Decentralisation

ABSTRACT

The process of local decentralisation of public services delivery has attracted research attention because of the wide range of factors that induce governments to make this decision. Nonetheless, most such studies have focused on economic and financial aspects, ignoring the impact of political factors. The scarce previous research about political factors is the motivation for this study. We used panel data models based on 153 Spanish municipalities with populations over 50,000 for the period 1999–2007. The process of decentralisation is disaggregated according to the legal form of the entities: corporations and foundations. Our results show that more corporatisation processes are carried out in environments where political competition is lower and the party in power enjoyed greater support in the last elections. Additionally, decentralisation processes usually take place in the years immediately following elections, especially through foundations. Furthermore, both forms of decentralisation are more likely to be initiated by right-wing politicians.     

The Intellectual Crisis in Philanthropy

Defenders of modern philanthropic freedom often defend donor intent and celebrate voluntary action. Nevertheless, donor intent and voluntarism have often undermined the conditions of constitutional freedom. This paper proposes that philanthropy currently suffers an intellectual crisis very much like the intellectual crisis in public administration diagnosed by Vincent Ostrom. The Common Core State Standards initiative is a case study of the problems of epistemic drift in philanthropy and raises questions about whether merely defending donor intent and voluntary action for their own sake is sufficient. To escape philanthropy’s current intellectual crisis requires a clearer consideration of the epistemic choices that shape donor intent and voluntary action.     

The Impact of EU Membership on UK Economic Performance

The relatively deep level of economic integration achieved by the European Union (EU) has been highly successful in increasing trade for its members. Larger trade volumes have had positive effects on productivity levels. In the case of the United Kingdom the gain from joining the EU was probably around 10 per cent of GDP and this far exceeded any costs of membership, possibly by a ratio of seven to one. A major reason for this outcome was a significant increase in competition as protectionism was abandoned. The economic implications of Brexit are much less clear because there are many permutations of what it would entail. Future trade barriers rather than budgetary transfers are the main issue. Brexit could be quite costly if the UK left the single market and used its new policy space badly. Ironically, while Brexit clearly appeals to free traders, it could end up empowering protectionists.     

Measuring the Impact of Community Engagement on Policy Making in the UK: A Local Case Study

Innovative attempts to involve citizens in policy making have been one of the defining features of the New Labour government in the UK. In this article, we examine the nature and impact of community engagement mechanisms within the flagship regeneration programme—the New Deal for Communities. Through interviews with practitioners, analysis of survey data and participant observation of governance boards we examine the methods and impact of initiatives to engage residents in policy making. While it is apparent that innovative strategies have been put in place to engage and empower communities in local policy making, this has not always been matched by the development of tools for measuring the impact of involvement or for scrutinizing the policy development and decision-making process. More people may have got involved, but little is known about precisely what effect their involvement has had upon policies at the local level. Consultation, or just publicizing what is happening and community involvement in decision-making are often conflated, and there is only a limited attempt to delineate and quantify the impact of each. It is also evident that information gathered as a result of some community engagement initiatives is not easily linked to policy development and is not always utilized in the policy process. For community involvement to become a meaningful and sustainable aspect of local policy making, an appropriate infrastructure needs to be developed to ensure that the decision-making process is transparent and accountable, and that the input from citizens genuinely informs decision-making.     

论资本主义世界经济体的历史逻辑

资本主义世界经济体作为一定历史阶段的产物,既不是沃勒斯坦所说的自西方资本主义国家进行世界范围内的殖民扩张开始形成的具有全球联系和特征的世界经济的延续和扩展,也不是吉登斯所说的由于民族国家及其体系为扩张提供制度保障使世界经济扩展为资本主义世界经济体,而是生产力与生产关系矛盾运动发展导致西欧社会经济变化从而进行海外扩张的逻辑结果.正是在资本主义世界经济体的形成过程中,形成了欧洲殖民国家与殖民地国家之间的国际分工.这种国际分工体系的本质是欧洲殖民国家剥削、压迫、奴役和控制殖民地国家,它一直延续到当今世界体系之中,决定了当代的经济全球化本质上是一场由于发达资本主义国家发动并主导的经济运动.     

The Political Impact of Environmental Economic Ideas

CO₂ taxes on industry increased in the Scandinavian countries over the course of the 1990s, whereas taxation on agricultural emissions of nitrogen stagnated or decreased. Variations between the two policy fields can in part be explained by contrasting ideational viabilities. Two diverging expert communities exist in the agricultural sector: the first is dominated by agricultural scientists, whose analytical vantage point is field production; the other is dominated by economists; whose analytical vantage point comprises overall socio-economic benefits. In the debate between these diverging models of cognition, the taxation of nitrogen is increasingly perceived as inefficient and unfair. Administrative bias and the position in the ministerial hierarchy affect the advice passed on to policy makers. The political viability of nitrogen taxes consequently decreases as politicians hesitate to employ a policy measure that can be cast into doubt on scientific grounds by the political opposition and agricultural organisations. Instead, alternative instruments developed by agricultural scientist are employed. Thus, the interaction between ideas and interests can contribute to our understanding of why the idea of externality taxation gains more political trenchancy in relation to the taxation of industrial CO₂ emissions than in the taxation of nitrogen emissions from agriculture.     

我国地方公共产品供给民营化研究

我国地方政府的基本职能是供给地方公共产品 ,而地方公共产品的特性决定了地方公共产品的供给可以采取民营的办法。那么 ,地方公共产品供给民营化的优势是什么 ,是不是所有的地方公共产品都可以民营化 ,这是值得深入研究的。我们认为地方公共产品供给民营化是有广泛的适用性 ,但需要完善的条件保证。     

The Impact of Low Trust on Economic Development: The Case of Latin America

Deficiencies of trust in many Latin American countries significantly impede efforts to attain sufficient levels of sustainable, long-term economic growth. This paper discusses the role of trust as seen through the eyes of small entrepreneurs in Latin America. Three tables are discussed that specifically portray the role of trust in society, how entrepreneurs use trust to sustain their enterprises and socioeconomic networks, and the impacts of low trust in economic development in Latin America. This paper confirms what many leading scholars have claimed over the past two decades, that a cultural legacy of fractious civil societies accompanied with disruptive and often-corrupt polities does matter when measuring human progress and economic development.     

Impact of National Politics on Local Elections in Scandinavia

The impact of national politics on local county and municipal elections since about 1970 is studied at the aggregate national level in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. At this level, the local politics swing, i.e., the change in party support from one local election to the next, can to a high degree be predicted by the swing in national politics support. In Sweden, the national politics support is simply the party support at the national election held on the same day as the local elections, while opinion polls are used for Denmark and Norway. With the swing model for proportional impact from national to local politics, it appears that the national impact is stronger in Norway and Sweden than in Denmark. The swing model can be improved by including feedback from the difference between local politics and national politics support at the previous election. The feedback force from national to local politics estimated by the feedback model is also stronger in Norway and Sweden than in Denmark. Further, a preliminary analysis of Danish data indicates that the feedback model is especially relevant for analysis of data from the individual municipalities.     

金融危机对我国经济增长的影响及应对策略

金融危机通过贸易领域传导至我国,对我国出口、投资、消费产生了较大的影响,从而抑制了我国的经济增长。我国经济增长除受到外因作用而放缓之外,还受到我国自身经济结构不合理、发展方式不科学的制约。面对金融危机的挑战,政府应加快推进经济结构调整、切实转变经济发展方式,促使消费、投资、出口协调拉动经济增长,以保持我国经济健康平稳可持续增长。     

The Impact of Objective and Empathic Dispositions on Local Government Budget Analysts' Spending Preferences

The spending preferences of local government budget analysts are based on individual decision modes; how individuals attend to, encode, and process information. While academicians and practitioners tend to assume that a budget analyst's disposition to act leads to specific spending preferences, that assumption is rarely tested empirically. This study draws on two theoretical constructs derived from social psychology, rationality (objectivism), and emotions (empathy). Leary and his colleagues demonstrate that objectivism predisposes one toward rational decision making in a variety of settings, while Eisenberg and her colleagues show that highly empathic individuals are predisposed toward helping and prosocial behavior. Results of this study suggests that empathic budget analysts, those scoring higher on the empathy scale, have distinctly different spending preferences than those budget analysts scoring higher on the objectivism scale; empathic budget analysts are disposed toward humanitarian criteria in decision making while objective budget analysts are disposed toward quantifiable cost-benefit considerations.